In the past few decades, urbanisation in China has been witnessed with great speed. While this has brought a rocketing economy and improved citizens’ average living standards, it does not come without any expense. Such intensive urban sprawling and industrialization in China has added up a great risk to upcoming climate challenges, especially bringing about water issues such as flooding, water pollution and drinking water scarcity that are closely linked with citizens’ safety, well-being and future prosperity. Though many policies and initiatives have been proposed to mitigate these water issues, few of them can solve the issues systemically.

Hence, with the Lake Chao Basin as a backdrop, the project aims at tackling these water issues from the perspective of systemic design and thus proposes a 'water- oriented urban development'. Through the maximization method, a pattern language for 'water-oriented urban development' is constructed. This set of pattern language not only provides solutions to address the main problems regarding water quantity, water quality and water safety in the region but also is targeted at bringing about a systemic change in the area by intervening on deep leverage points.

To illustrate the implementation of the pattern language, a multi-scale framework for the Lake Chao Basin is created, with the vision for Tanchong River Basin 2030 as a strategic project. It shows how the implementation of the pattern language could reshape the landscape on different scales, engage various stakeholders and promote a sustained commitment to the water system among citizens. This will also provide transferable knowledge to other areas on how the patterns could be integrated into the future urban development process and contribute to the sustainable water system.
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By 2050, South-Holland will transform into a transition based urbanity with value change at its core. Currently, consumers are disconnected from where their food is produced, leading to a high environmental impact, unhealthy choices and social injustice to the farmers’ work. The proposed strategy of change for the region would see South Holland shift away from being an export based business of livestock farming, lowering and limiting production to local needs, while changing the attitude of farming, and reshaping it as a spatial part of everyday life, freely accessible to the region’s citizens. In order to do that a strategy of transitions is chosen, recognizing three core spatial movements based on the three pillars of sustainability; diet transition, attitude transition and technical transition. Diet Transition - changes in food consumption would also affect the spatial landscape upon which food is produced. Attitude Transition - raising awareness toward how meat and dairy is produced would affect the cities where consumption takes place and how the different actors are treated. Technical Transition - would help change the Dutch industrial sites from an exporter of goods to an exporter of knowledge while supplying it with clean energy, creating a better South Holland while benefiting other countries. In the vision, it is recognized that these movements have spatial manifestations in the form of rings, with their points of overlap being ideal to the beginning of change, as they are where new sustainable relations would be most meaningful. These zones are where the transition of attitude, diet and technology will happen for the circular agriculture in South-Holland. A toolkit of 21 typologies is created with a focus on these transitions while keeping a pleasant environment. The new vision will lead to a circular economy in the livestock sector of South-Holland with sustainable relations between producers and consumers. ... Read more